After 90 years, the Finnish Civil War remains a sensitive subject

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By Teija Sutinen
     
     The face in the photograph is that of a serious man. His dark hair is parted on the left side. He is wearing his Sunday best, with a pair of laced boots on his feet. The photographer in Vyborg undoubtedly warned him not to blink his eyes as the picture was taken.
     The photo dates back to between 1910 and 1918. The man is Juho Kontinen, a labourer who was born in the rural community of Kitee in 1886. Like many others in the east of Finland, he had gone to Vyborg to find work.
     It is in Vyborg that Juho found his wife - Miina Hirvonen from Heinävesi. They had settled in the working class neighbourhood of Tiiliruukki.
     Things were going well for Juho. He did carpentry work, making skis at a workshop. Miina worked as a servant in a Russian household. At the end of 1917 Miina becomes pregnant with their first child.
     Then things begin to happen.
     
The Bolsheviks seize power in Russia, and in the midst of the revolution, Finland declares itself independent. Russia's confused situation causes unrest in Finland. Unemployment increases, and there is a shortage of food.
     Workers had set up units of Red Guards around Finland. Juho Kontinen joined the Vyborg Guard.
     In late January 1918 the unrest boils over: the Reds took over Helsinki, while in Ostrobothnia, White forces disarm units of Russian soldiers.
     In February, the whole southern part of Finland, from Pori to Vyborg, is under the control of the Reds. Gradually the Whites gain the initiative, and the Red Guards withdraw eastward.
     In the last week of April, the Whites attack Vyborg, the last pocket of Red resistance, and on Monday. April 20th, the battle for Vyborg is over. A total of 11,000 people are taken prisoner by the White forces. More than 6,000 of the prisoners are held in the largest prison camp in Vyborg, the central barracks. One of them is Juho Kontinen, my maternal grandfather. Pappa.
     What happened to him?
     
The events of Vyborg in 1918 are a mystery for our family. Everyone knew that Pappa had been sent to the prison camp. In our family, where leftist sympathies prevailed, this was no dishonour. On the contrary, it was proof of how unjustly workers were sometimes treated in Finland.
     Pappa survived the camp, but he and our grandmother spoke very little to their own children of the time of the Civil War in Vyborg, and much less to their grandchildren.
     Nor did people ask questions about it. Perhaps people were being tactful - or perhaps there was fear of what the answer might have been.
     Not until middle age - not until far too many relatives had been buried, before I really started to become interested in what happened to Pappa.
     Feeding my interest were what the new generation wrote about the dramatic events of the Civil War.
     
What had my Pappa done? Why was he sent to the prison camp.
     I was eight years old when Juho Kontinen died in 1970. Grandmother Miina, who lived almost to the age of 100, died in 1985.
     No letters, post cards, or photographs - except for the stiff portrait photo of Juho from the Vyborg studio.
     One has to begin from somewhere. Perhaps historian Marko Tikka might know where to start.
     Tikka listens to my tidbits of information, and agrees to meet with me. However, before I do that, I need to go to the National Archives in Helsinki.
     The archives should contain a number of articles from the collection of documents pertaining to crimes against the state - a list of all of the Reds who were tried for their participation in the rebellion by two special courts set up for that specific purpose.
     As the story that was passed down in the family tells that Juho had been held in the prison camp, in all likelihood, he was tried by the two courts.
     With any luck, a separate file on Juha Kontinen should be found in the archive.
     I was surprised to learn that meticulous papers had been kept for each prisoners. I had always imagined that the Reds were herded into prison camps after the war in a chaotic manner.
     Marko Tikka insists that something will be found, because the archives contain much information even about the ordinary foot soldiers of the losing side. It is much more difficult to find information on individual Whites.
     
The Civil War was a brutal and ugly war, as civil wars always are. After the war the Whites held 80,000 - 90,000 Reds or suspected Reds as prisoners. At least 12,000 prisoners died in the camps from inadequate food and rampant disease.
     The war affected nearly all Finns in one way or another, and I am certainly not the only one to be interested in events affecting immediate family members. At the National Archives information about the Civil War is among the most sought-after material.
     A thick book is brought to me - a collection of names on file of the State Criminal Court. The names are in alphabetical order, so "Kontinen, Juho, son of Paavo" is easy to find. After his name there is a code number VRYO 22564.
     The code means that Juho Kontinen had applied to the higher court for clemency for his sentence. About 27,000 Red prisoners applied for clemency after the Civil War.
     The file number should give me immediate access to Juho's file, because the National Archives have digitalised all of the material.
     
I am astounded at the speed with which the material became available. I had prepared myself for a long and frustrating search process. Could the archives contain something else about Juho?
     According to the family history, Juho had been held prisoner at the Central Barracks of Vyborg. Could there be something there?
     A container about the size of a shoe box is placed in front of me. It is the Archive of the Prison Administration on the prison camps of 1918. The box contained information about all of the prisoners held at the Central Barracks, with names ranging from Kolhonen to Kuparinen.
     The box is full of cards, and two such cards refer to Juho. According to the larger one, Juho Kontinen was held in Vyborg at Hospital IV on Aleksanterinkatu 32. The address refers to the Central Barracks, but why had Pappa been hospitalised? The card does not reveal that.
     
Juho was taken prisoner on April 29th, the day when the last of the Reds in Vyborg surrendered.
     The next entry is from June 5th, when Juho had been "investigated". This could refer to interrogations. The entry after that is from July 20th: Juho is released!
     However, it is not a permanent release. On September 2nd, he is sentenced in the State Criminal Court.
     In the spot marked Inquiries someone has written in winding handwriting that he had been freed on November 4th 1918 on the basis of the clemency of October 10th, 1918.
     
Late April to early November was the duration of Juho's entire prison camp ordeal. The card suggests that he had been temporarily released in July, but imprisoned again in early September.
     The other card indicates the sentence. The crime in question was aiding and abetting in treason, with a sentence of two years imprisonment, and the loss of citizenship rights for four years. The expression "aiding and abetting treason" sounds dramatic, but that was the crime that nearly every Red was charged with. It says little about what Juho had actually done.
     For that information, I will need to see Juho's file. I have to wait until the following day.
     "What if there is something really unpleasant in the file?" my husband asks me that evening.
     I had not thought of that. I simply want to know.
     
The next day at the National Archives I am presented with Juho's file. The yellowed sheets of paper stick together and smell old. I turn the pages carefully. It is years since this has been opened.
     The file contains an interrogation protocol dated June 5th, 1918, a record of the State Criminal Court dated September 2nd, an extract from the Church Registry, and an application for clemency.
     The interrogation protocol finally reveals that Juho Kontinen "joined the Red Guard in February 1918 ... in the city of Vyborg". His commanders had been "tailor Auvinen, and a certain Hyvärinen".
     According to the protocol, Juho had been a member of the local trade union organisation of labourers and factory workers from December 1916. His entire brief career in the Red Guard was revealed in the interrogation protocol - a form where the questions were printed in advance.
      Reason for joining the Red Guard, how much pay was promised and how much received: "Lacking work, had to do something for a living. Pay promised - 10 markka a day, 100.00 for the wife. - Received 600 mk, wife got 100."
      Who does he know in his community who urged him to join the war or the Guard: "Newspapers and one other."
      "Time and place involved in battle, involved in what other action, what weapons carried, and location of weapons now: "Peel and boiled potatoes, washed cabbage, heat and cleaned barracks. In last weeks, worked as receptionist in soup kitchen. Never carried a weapon, and committed no crime. Finally escaped. Had no weapon."
     So this was Juho's crime? I read the lines again and again. A receptionist at a soup kitchen - involved in the kinds of services without which no army could march very far - and in Vyborg, not the front line.
     I am relieved. But why was it necessary to remain silent about this? Did he experience something in the camp that he did not want to remember?
     
A couple of days later I take a train to Tampere to meet with Marko Tikka. For decades, political passions have coloured historical research concerning the year 1918 as well, emphasising the White, or the Red point of view at different times. Only the younger generation of researchers, such as Tikka, are free to weigh the different aspects of the war.
     Perhaps Tikka might explain what conclusions might be drawn from the papers.
     Tikka says that the material is quite typical. The files on the convicts contain fairly reliable information, he says. The intelligence unit of the White army and the Civil Guard collected reports from law enforcement authorities and trusted citizens, and extracted much information about the prisoners.
     Juho's file contains a handwritten account according to which he appears "in a certain unsigned list of members of the Food company dated 1.3.1918".
     Intelligence therefore found incriminating evidence that the person being questioned is in the ranks of the Red Guard even if he were to claim something different. In Juho's case, the significant issue is his own claim that he had not been at the front.
     The nterrogators, Martti Pitkänen and merchant M. Kaukonen, reach the conclusion: "Red Guard volunteer, although apparently a harmless person. Propose that he be kept under arrest for time being."
     
Apparently a harmless person. So all you had to be was a guard of a Red Guard soup kettle to get a prison sentence.
     However, a two year sentence was among the most lenient. The court handed down a total of 67,788 guilty verdicts. Tikka says that 31,000 Red Guards were sentenced to three years. Slightly over 12,800 got two years.
     But did Pappa become a Red Guard soldier for money? In his interrogation he admitted that he was paid for taking part in the Red Guard.
      Tikka says that there was often social coercion involved. The trade union section might have made a joint decision to join the Red Guard - a decision that would have been hard to go against.
      The protocol reveals nothing about Juho's ideology. Perhaps it would have been unwise to emphasise that in the interrogation. However, the protocol does reveal why Pappa was hospitalised. He had a "hard catarrh of the stomach" - a precursor to a stomach ulcer.
     The file also contains two pieces of evidence, which Juho, or perhaps his wife Miina had acquired in use on his behalf.
     "I hereby testify that Juho Kontinen worked in the Red Guard in the kitchen, that he was not committing banditry, nor murdering anybody. During the battle for Vyborg he was on the run in the city", writes Taneli Nakari, whose specific identity is not revealed in the paper.
     "I hereby certify that in the last four days before the city was taken, factory worker Juho Kontinen and his family were in the cellar of our house, escaping the bombardment." the paper was signed by acting provincial governor Valf Suhonen.
     That must have been a long four days. The whites bombarded Vyborg, and the sounds of street fighting had carried into the cellar.
      Next to him was his wife, who was six months pregnant.
     
A "report of activities of the prison camp of the Vyborg Central Barracks dating back to 1919 was found in the National Archives. It had been clean-typed by an official of the camp.
     In 1918 460 prisoners died at the camp. The most common cause of death was marasmus - which basically means malnutrition. Next came pneumonia and intestinal infections.
     The list of diseases chillingly reveals how the flu epidemic - the infamous Spanish influenza - began to claim prisoners in Vyborg. The disease spread like wildfire as prisoners were moved from one camp to another. Marko Tikka estimates that the Spanish flu killed between 4,000 and 5,000 prisoners. It was at its worst in July 1918, when the Vyborg camp was at its most crowded.
     The Finnish Labour Archives contain an account of Taavetti Akkanen, who spent some time at the camp in Vyborg. It was submitted to the archive in 1938. In it, Akkanen describes the first few weeks of the camp - exactly the period in which Juho is known to have been there.
     "In addition to the rest of the misery, we there was constant hunger, and that was the worst companion of all. Twice a day we were given some kinds of ‘calories', but they did nothing to quench the hunger. The main ingredient of our rations was some kind of soup, or more accurately, a watery broth, which initially had some potatoes, cabbage, root vegetables, and so on mixed in, and enough meat so that a small morsel might happen to find its way into the bowl."
     According to Akkanen, instead of bread, each prisoner was given three salty Baltic herring. The fish made the prisoners extremely thirsty. Water available, but drinking it only increased the sensation of hunger.
     
Relatives of the prisoners had initially been allowed to bring food to the prisoners, although the guards pushed the wives away with their bayonets. According to a family legend, Miina also looked for Juho at the central barracks, but a civil guard had hit her with the butt of his rifle, cursing the "woman of a Red".
     Thanks to Miina, Juho was able to eat more for a while. Miina had been given a beautiful ring by her employer, which she managed to get to Juho somehow.
     However, little is known about Juho's prison experiences in his family. My mother remembers hearing that at one stage Juho was sent on a work detail to dig graves for those who were executed.
     Taavetti Akkanen relates in his memoirs how the prisoners would compete with each other to get onto a work detail. Those who were given work were temporarily given more solid food, and were even allowed to buy tobacco and something to eat.
     
Juho Kontinen was released from imprisonment on July 20th, 1918. Six days later Miina gave birth to a boy - my uncle Arvi.
     I do not know if the release had anything to do with the birth of the baby. Tikka believes that there would have been some other reason for the release.
     Vyborg suffered from a serious shortage of food, and in September, Juho was sent back to the prison camp. At some stage Miina left Vyborg to go to her home region of Heinävesi, carrying her baby, unsure of what would become of her husband. Grandmother admitted later to my mother than she doubted that Juho would survive.
     But he did - thin as a match. He walked the whole way to Heinävesi - at least that is what the family's oral tradition says.
     After the war Miina and Juho wandered around Finland looking for work. Juho got short term jobs working for Finnish sawmills. The employers did not ask questions about his past, because other sawmill workers were also former reds.
     From Heinävesi Juho and Miina first moved to Kotka, then to Kuusankoski, and from there to Suonenjoki, where they settled. Juho carried boards from the Piimä sawmill and built a cabin in Kolikkoinmäki in Iisvesi in 1925 - on the same hill as dozens of other working class families.
     My mother, the youngest of five children, was born in 1930, when Miina and Juho were already 44 years old.
     Juho stayed away from politics after the war, but he did pull one radical stunt. In Suonenjoki he went to the vicar's office and removed his family from the books of the Lutheran church. The involvement of clergy on the side of the Whites had offended him deeply.
     
Pappa lived the last years of his life in the hospital ward of the Suonenjoki Local Authority Home. He had suffered a stroke, and in the 1960s stroke victims were rarely rehabilitated, so Pappa spent most of his days lying in bed. His eyesight deteriorated, apparently as a result of macular degeneration.
     I remember visiting him at the home. I remember how Pappa would feel my hair and face with his hand.
     I wanted to pull away. The old man lying in the bed was a distant figure to me.
     I knew nothing of his life.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.1.2008


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Civil War was Finland´s first modern war (17.8.2006)
  Study: Finnish Civil War battlefield deaths more numerous than previously thought (21.2.2006)

TEIJA SUTINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
teija.sutinen@hs.fi